Thoughts about something very cool…
Paint ball course that is designed after video game maps. Carentan, Dust, all the greats. These would be built extremely close to scale to accomidate already know tactics.
Along with each map you would be given the proper equipment. Granted, you wouldn’t be able to switch sides very quickly, but a quick coat change wouldn’t be bad between rounds. The other primary benefit, at least if this exists, is the ability to get hit with a paint ball. Wait, that thought’s not complete…
The whole point of this is to replicate the atmosphere the map is set. If you’re fighting in Burgandy, you certainly woulnd’t want to be sitting in a cubby looking like something out of My Little Pony. The differnt colors of paint would quickly ruin the fun. Also, if you’re playing in clothes that depict that map, why would you want to get it all messy. How about using a paint that was reactive to change color with another solution; something that could be sprayed on the spots where you got hit. Disappearing ink if you will…
The other benefit is that you could judge kills by the number of hits, spray your selfdown after the round and go at it again. There’s the potential someone may say that a spot on their uniform is from last round, and to that I say, guess you should spray more. Further, this paint should already be capable of fading in about 30 minutes. I’m not sure how long a round would last, but that should give enough time for the paint to not be an issue.
Well, that takes care of DM, TDM, CTF, HQ, and HTF (probably missed a few more). What about when a person who gets shot should be shot. How would be safeguard against people getting this solution and spraying themselves down? Well, I suppose we could go on the honor system but I think it’s safe to assume that wouldn’t last long. I’m sure something could be worked up or that there could be some kind of a zero-tolerance policy… but that just sounds so high school to me.
What about making this high tech? With my recent digging in deep with ham radio, I’m loving being able to tie it to computers. Hmm, let’s see, we want to know when someone dies and where. Sounds like the perfect job for APRS to me! Using this we could easily set up small HTs to transmit the location AND text messages to the main repeater. When someone gets hit, all they have to do is hit a button on a small pad or box that will say they’ve been killed. Oh, but how do we know they’ll hit the button? Well, for one, someone is shooting at him!
The fact remains that they’re going to have to be wearing some kind of computer. We could put sensors in the gun that would tell us the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the tip of the gun in relation to the center of the body. This data could be sent back as a text message along with the GPS coordinates. Now we have location and angle of the gun. The person doing the shooting, when he fires the gun we can figure the trajectory of the shot and figure whether he hit the other guy or not.
I suppose at this point the button pad for each player could be less important, but I think it should still be there as a form of verification. It really can’t take that much to transmit 1 byte.
That pretty much sums up the idea and what could make it all work. I’m going to continue this later…
I can’t imagine much hand to hand going on so we don’t have to worry much about that.